مسلمة تريد حماية البوليس الكندى من بقية المسلمين

[yaweeka]

SEP 10, 2003
GLOBE AND MAIL
PAGE: A9 (ILLUS) (NATIONAL NEWS)


Muslim writer may be given police security
Publisher worries that provocative book could cause trouble for Canadian author
MICHAEL POSNER



Random House, publisher of a provocative new book calling for the reform of Islam, is seeking police protection for its Canadian author, Irshad Manji, herself a Muslim.



The book, The Trouble with Islam, A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change, was published last week in Germany. It will come out in Canada Sept. 16 and next year in Britain, France, the United States, Australia and elsewhere. Calling the Muslim religion fundamentally anti-Semitic, antifeminist, racist and antihomosexual, Ms. Manji further contends that Islam needs to stop regarding its holy book, the Koran, as the absolute, indisputable word of God, and open itself up to discussion, debate and dissent.



Christianity, Judaism, even Buddhism, she acknowledges, also nurture fundamentalist currents. "The difference is that in Islam, literalism is now mainstream."



Many Muslim clerics and Islamic disciples are likely to regard such views as heretical, if not blasphemous. Other Muslims who have dared to write perceived challenges to established authority, including Indian novelist Salman Rushdie and Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, have faced death threats delivered in fatwas, or formal decrees, issued by Muslim clerics.



No specific threats have been issued against Ms. Manji, although an unidentified writer to her Web site, muslim-refusenik.com, recently warned: "These Western countries of whom you are a stooge, they have nothing but venom for Islam. You have nothing but praise for them . . . You will never be forgiven."



Random House editor and publisher Anne Collins wrote to federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter on July 25, requesting that Ms. Manji be given status as an International Protected Person.



The letter said Random House and Ms. Manji had met with the RCMP, the Toronto police, private security officials and religious scholars -- all of whom agreed the author would be exposed to risk.



Mr. Rushdie, in a private meeting with the author some time ago, also voiced concern, but told her, "a book is more important than a life."



Ms. Manji's Toronto-area MP, Dennis Mills, met with her and later confirmed, after discussions with "Muslim friends in my riding, that the book is not something they would celebrate or welcome."



The Solicitor General rejected Random House's request for protected status, saying it is available only to foreign visitors to Canada.



But since The Trouble With Islam was published abroad, Mr. Mills said yesterday he had asked Mr. Easter to revisit the issue of protecting Ms. Manji.



Mr. Mills said the reaction of his Muslim constituents to the reported contents of the book did not elicit "anywhere near the level of antagonism" accorded to Mr. Rushdie. "But I believe you have to take the utmost precaution."



He said he had also contacted the office of Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino and been assured that "systems of security were in play for her."



Ms. Collins said she thought the likelihood of an untoward event was small, "but given the times we live in, and given that Irshad is asking penetrating questions about Islam, we have to explore all the avenues open to us."



Montreal MP Irwin Cotler, who has read galleys of the book, calls it "a convergence of all the hot-button issues. The result could well be that a radical cleric will issue a fatwa against her." Mr. Cotler said he intended to ask the Solicitor General next week whether some initiative comparable to IPP status might be conferred by ministerial discretion.



In the absence of such an initiative, Toronto police would be responsible for Ms. Manji's security. A spokesman for the police force said yesterday that its measures would depend on an assessment of risk.



Next week Ms. Manji is scheduled to begin a promotional tour of every major Canadian city.



The host of TVO's Big Ideas, Ms. Manji said she hopes her book will reignite the long-extinguished flame of Islamic inquiry and challenge. "I don't pretend to have the answers, but I do have a lot of questions and these need to be addressed."